Britain was soon a global power, but America, “while civilizing rapidly, was still largely a wild and untamed place.”2 But the British in the motherland didn’t understand the problems the colonists faced dealing with the Indians. George Grenville became prime minister in 1763. It was important to him that the colonists profit Britain, but they did not.3 Britain might have overlooked the commercial mediocrity of the colonies, but it could not overlook their “brazen and repeated flouting of British laws.”4 Parliament passed act after act that many of the colonists deemed oppressive, and many ignored them—the Molasses Act, the Navigation Acts, the Sugar Act, and the Stamp Act.5 Then there was violence. On the same day that the chancellor of the exchequer, Lord North, announced there would be no new taxes from London, a mob of radical colonists, unaware of North’s announcement, attacked the Boston customs house. Snowballs were thrown at the British guards, who fired and killed 5 and wounded several more in what became known as the Boston Massacre.
